In the two weeks leading up to Super Bowl XLVIII, any police officer, transit official or league representative worth their salt would have told you to arrive hours before the game to be sure you had time to enter MetLife Stadium before kickoff.

But at 5:30 p.m., the stragglers looked a lot smarter than the early birds. Fans outside the stadium's checkpoints easily skated through metal detectors and bag checks, reporting wait times of less than five minutes as the sky turned dark and fans filed inside less than hour before kickoff. From 2 to 4 p.m., most fans said they had to wait roughly 45 minutes to get access to the stadium grounds.

"I've been to 12 Super Bowls. This is the easiest," said 43-year-old Derek Stebner, from Arizona. "Last year we had to wait at least an hour."

Robert Smith, a 25-year-old resident of Southern California, said he spent a considerable amount of time circling Route 3 looking for a place to park that offered a shuttle to the stadium, which wound up being a $225 venture. But once he arrived at the stadium, it took all of two minutes to clear the phalanx of troopers standing guard at Pavilion C.

"There was no wait at all," Smith said. "Once we made it, we made it."